


i just can't stop myself

by Rustyanklebraclet



Category: Space Force (TV)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Minor Injuries, Pining, chan is a cat person i will die on this hill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29027106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rustyanklebraclet/pseuds/Rustyanklebraclet
Summary: “I’m fine. And thanks for the coffee, but you don’t need to give me things to show that you’re sorry. I know you didn’t push me on purpose, I’m not mad at you.”“I know. I still feel bad, though.”Chan rolls his eyes. “Don’t.”---how to fix things after you push the guy you like down the stairs: a guide by f. tony scarapiducci
Relationships: Chan Kaifang & F. Tony Scarapiducci, Chan Kaifang/F. Tony Scarapiducci
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	i just can't stop myself

**Author's Note:**

> the thing is that technically this is an au of the icarly episode where freddie gets hit by a taco truck. however, i have not seen icarly in like eight years, and discovered whilst looking through the wiki page for that episode that i drastically misremembered almost every plot point to an embarrassing degree. but its still technically an icarly taco truck episode au because. i said so.
> 
> title is from falling for ya from teen beach movie. greatest pun ive ever made and i couldnt be prouder.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to help you with those?” Tony asks, and Chan side-eyes him.

“We went all the way up the lab stairs, across the base, and three-quarters of the way up these stairs, but now you want to help me?”

Tony shrugs. “What can I say? Chivalry is my passion.”

Chan rolls his eyes, but doesn’t respond, focused on getting up the final few steps to Naird’s office without dropping the several pallets of sprouts he’s carrying. Tony goes ahead of him, reaching out his arm to steady Chan as he steps onto the landing.

“Actually, could you take these for a second? I’ve had to itch my nose for, like, four minutes.”

“I can just scratch it for you,” Tony says, sticking out his hand, but Chan dips away from him.

“Do _not_ touch my face. Can you just take the plants, please?”

Tony holds out his arms, and Chan tenderly passes them over. Tony watches Chan scratch his nose, before smoothing down his lab coat and brushing stray hair out of his face, then shaking his clearly tired arms out.

“What?” Chan asks, and Tony realizes he forgot about his whole “stop-staring-at-Chan-because-you’re-being-creepy-also-because-he’s-definitely-catching-on-that-you-like-him” rule.

“Nothing,” Tony says, shaking his head. “I spaced out for a second. Here.”

Tony holds out the plants for Chan to take, but he doesn’t. He just continues to look at Tony, skeptical, and maybe a little amused.

“No. what is it?”

“It’s nothing. Will you just-” Tony pushes the plants toward him. Partly because he’s done with this conversation, and partly because his arms are starting to get tired. How did Chan carry these all the way across the base?

Chan takes a step back. “Tell me what it is,” he says, voice teetering on the edge of teasing. “You keep doing that! You stare directly at me, and then you’re like” -he drops his voice several octaves lower, in a mocking impression of Tony- “what? Me? That wasn’t me. I didn’t do that.”

One of the key elements of Chan and Tony's relatively new friendship has been that they don’t push each other. When one of them tells the other to drop something, it’s dropped. Tony is wondering where that whole philosophy went, and why Chan is choosing ten minutes before a big presentation to abandon it.

“Look, can we talk about this later?” Tony says, and Chan's face lights up as he points an accusatory finger.

“So there _is_ something to- woah!”

Chan cuts himself off in surprise, as he steps back onto a step he doesn’t seem to have realized was there. Tony reaches out to help him, but has the split-second realization that if he does he’ll drop the palettes, ruining nine months of Chan’s work, something he’s pretty sure Chan will be angrier about than a little tumble. However, the aborted movement of his arm does end up reaching Chan, it just turns out as more of a shove to his arm.

Tony watches in horrified slow-motion as Chan tries to grab the railing, misses, and falls down the entire spiral atrium staircase. 

* * *

Tony goes to the lab the next morning before he even gets to his own office, two coffees in hand.

“Sorry I broke your leg, hope a coffee fixes it,” a voice says from next to Tony as he pauses in the stairwell to check his phone. He looks up to see Dr. Chandreshekar, eyebrows raised at the coffee “is Chan even going to be here today?”

“He insisted on it,” Tony says, recalling the previous afternoon. Tony had taken Chan to the hospital from the base, and driven him home afterward, where they had argued in Tony’s car for almost ten minutes about whether Chan would be coming back to work the next day before Tony gave up.

Chandreshekar shrugs. “That’s Chan for you.”

Once inside, Tony finds Chan struggling to prop himself up on his crutches as he sorts through a pile of notes on his bench.

“You know this is why I thought you should stay home, right?“ Tony asks, watching Chan almost lose his balance with a grimace.

Chan shakes his head. “I’m fine. And thanks for the coffee, but you don’t need to give me things to show that you’re sorry. I know you didn’t push me on purpose, I’m not mad at you.”

“I know. I still feel bad, though.”

Chan rolls his eyes. “Don’t.”

“Seriously,” Tony says, leaning his elbows on the bench so he can use them to prop his head up and be eye level with Chan, who continues to focus on his work “there’s gotta be something I can do. Let me make it better, dearest.”

“Okay, fine,” Chan says, sighing and putting down his papers to face Tony “you really want to help? You can drive me to and from the gas station every day. I can’t get an uber up to the base, and I hate asking Mallory for help, but he’s the only one that I know comes from that direction and will actually do it” he turns back to his work. “And don't call me _dearest_.”

“Well, no promises on the second part, but-” Tony stands up properly and points at him ”-I’ll do you one better. Why don’t I just drive you the whole way? I know where you live from when your truck was in the shop last month, it’s on my way anyway. Plus, y’know. The environment.”

“Seriously?” Chan says. “That would be great. I’ll pay you for gas and stuff, obviously.”

“Yeah, of course. I hate the long drive alone anyway, it gets boring. Now I'll have you to entertain me.”

“Don’t count on that, unless you wanna hear me talk about plants and shit for an hour.”

Tony struggles to come up with a way to respond that doesn’t give away just how much he would, in fact, like that.

* * *

“Never? Seriously?”

“I’m serious.”

“Like. Never? Not even when you were a kid?”

Chan shakes his head.

“I can’t believe this,” Tony says, incredulous.

“What’s the big deal?”

“What’s the big deal? You’ve gone through your entire life and haven’t seen fucking _Star Wars_. That’s the big deal.”

“C’mon. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of people that haven't seen Star Wars.”

“Yeah, sure,” Tony says, “but you’re-”

“I’m what?”

“A huge nerd!” Tony blurts, before clapping one hand over his mouth and turning to Chan, wide-eyed.

Chan gapes at him in mock-offence, and Tony shakes his head.

“Dude, I’m so sorry. That just- it just came out- I didn’t-”

“Tony, it’s fine,” Chan tells him, laughing. “Watch the road.”

“No, it’s- look.” Tony says, feeling Chan’s eyes on him “I just meant that you work at the space division of the military, which is basically real-life Star Wars, and you’re like, one of the most important rocket scientists-”

“I’m an Astro botanist.”

“Whatever. My point is, it seems like the kind of thing you would have gotten into at some point. I’m sorry.”

“I said it’s fine. I’m more just surprised you managed to go three whole days without putting your foot in your mouth during an hour-long car ride.”

“Well you’re screwed now,” Tony says “that opened the floodgate. The next seven and a half weeks are gonna be hell.”

Chan laughs, covering his mouth as he does it, and Tony glances over at him, allowing himself to look for just a couple of short moments. He smiles fondly to himself as he turns back to the road. He thinks he feels Chan’s eyes on him a few seconds later, but when he glances over, Chan is just staring out the window, still grinning.

* * *

“I made you something.”

“You what?”

Tony is only just pulling out of Chan’s driveway, and he’s already digging through his insanely full bag. Tony watches him warily, only half focused on driving

“It’s more for both of us, i guess. Watch the road,” Chan says, as though he’s developed some sort of magical instinct for Tony's horrendous driving abilities. They’ve almost died more times than Tony can count in the past two weeks, though, so he wouldn't really be surprised if that were the case.

“Here it is,” Chan says, and he pulls out… a CD.

“Here what is?” Tony asks.

“It’s a CD.”

“I know what a CD is, asshole. I meant why do you have it?”

“I’m so sick of listening to your Spotify. Did you know you have horrendous music taste? Like, just pure dogshit.”

“You’ve mentioned it, yeah,” Tony says.

“So I'm taking control.”

“With your CD?”

“With my CD.”

“Right,” Tony says. “I know that you know what Spotify is. We were just talking about it.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point? I think the CD makes my point for me! I’ve told you like a thousand times that you can just hook your phone up if you hate my playlists so much.”

Chan shakes his head. “Nah. this way is better. They don’t make technology like this anymore.”

“Yeah, the same way they don’t make paint with lead anymore.”

“Shut up. I like the physical music,” Chan says “it’s more special this way, y’know? Like, you can hold it in your hands. You can just make a playlist on your phone and it’s, y’know, whatever. It’s there when you need it and gone the second you don’t. But this sticks around. I like it when things do that.”

Tony knows he should be looking at the road, but he can’t stop staring at Chan, whose head ducks in embarrassment.

“Fuck off. I know how corny it sounds, okay? You don’t have to make me feel weird about it.”

“No, Chan, I-” Tony clears his throat as his brain goes into overdrive trying not to say something he can’t take back. “I get what you’re saying. Totally. It just surprised me. You don’t really talk about stuff like that very often. I didn’t mean to make you feel weird.”

Chan smiles at Tony, sort of awkwardly, and Tony returns it. Chan pulls the disk out of its case, and it’s not long before the first few bars of _Waterloo_ by ABBA fill up the car. Tony’s hands tap against the steering wheel, and he can see Chan doing the same to the CD case out of the corner of his eye.

Tony goes home that night and orders a five-pack of blank CDs off amazon.

* * *

“What are you doing this weekend?” Chan asks, about a week later, when Tony's driving him home on Friday night.

“Don’t know. I was supposed to have a date tomorrow, but he cancelled.”

“I'm sorry.”

Tony waves his hand dismissively. “It’s all good. I’m kind of relieved that I don't have to go anywhere, honestly. I hate the fucking cold. Colorado weather is such bullshit. Plus, I wasn't really that into him.”

“Why were you going out with him then? I mean, if you don't mind answering.”

“Oh, uh,” Tony swallows, heavily debating just how much to tell Chan “I've been trying to get over someone else, actually. Just a dumb little crush, but I know they don’t feel the same way, so...”

“Anything I can do to help?”

Tony stifles a laugh. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, alright. Let me know,” Chan says, and Tony nods at him. “Anyways, I was going to ask you if you wanted to hang out tomorrow? Maybe watch a movie? At my place, though. I don't want to deal with crutches in a dark theatre. Just ‘cause- I don’t know. We’re definitely friends, but we’ve never once hung out outside of work. Feels like we should.”

Tony’s brain almost short circuits. “At your place?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

Tony opens his mouth to respond in a totally cool, normal way, but ends up choking on his own spit and hacking violently into his elbow for the better part of a minute, with a few thumps on the back from Chan.

“Sure, that sounds cool,” he chokes out. Nailed it.

“Great. Does seven work? I’ll make dinner, too, if you want. I’m a pretty good cook.”

Tony just nods with an overenthusiastic smile, fearful that he’ll propose on the spot if he opens his mouth.

* * *

Tony knocks on Chan’s door at twenty-after-seven, feeling sort of shitty about being late. He had gone through half the shirts he owned before deciding on a plain button-down, untucked from his jeans.

“Come in!” Chan shouts, and Tony pushes the door open, kicking his snow-covered boots against the doorframe as he does it.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, pulling off his boots and setting them on the mat next to the door.

“It’s cool. Food’s almost ready.”

Tony steps out of the front hall and into the main room, where the kitchen is separated from the living room and a small dining table by a wall with a large cutout in the middle. He almost trips over a potted plant on a small stand as he does it, and soon realizes that there seems to be about three times as many plants as there is furniture.

“You have a lot of plants,” Tony says, going further into the room, looking around at everything.

Chan’s head appears in the cutout. “Thanks for telling me. I hadn’t noticed.”

Tony rolls his eyes as he comes into the kitchen. “What are you making?”

“Oh, uh, it’s like a pasta thing? It’s got peppers and meat sauce and some other stuff in it. I don’t really know what it’s called, but it’s good. Trust me. My ex and I used to make it all the time.”

“Did you invite me over here so I could eat some dish you only make because you miss your ex?” Tony asks, half-joking and half-fearful.

“What? God, no. we broke up because we realized we were both gay. It’s just really good pasta.”

“Oh,” Tony says, sort of dumbly.

“Can you grab the plates on the top shelf of that cupboard?” Chan asks him, pointing to the corner of the room “I’d do it myself, but I’m scared of the step stool with my leg. Plus, y’know. Might as well exploit your genetics while you’re here.”

Tony nods, reaching up to grab two plates and setting them on the counter for Chan to put pasta on.

“Can you put those on the table? It’s already set, I just need to get Barb’s food.”

“I didn’t know you had a roommate,” Tony says, setting the plates down on the table, slightly put-out that the two of them won't be alone together.

“I don’t,” Chan says, and Tony comes back into the kitchen to see him dumping a tin of wet cat food into a small glass bowl.

“Barb!” he calls, and Tony hears a little jingle a few seconds later, followed by a small black cat running between his legs and right to where Chan has set the food on the floor.

“Barb?” Tony asks.

“Aloe Barbadensis Miller, more commonly known as Aloe Vera,” Chan says, crouching down to stroke her back while she eats “Or, in this case, Barb.”

Tony’s face flushes so hard that he feels the tips of his ears heat up, and he prays that Chan doesn’t notice. He’s not sure how he’s ended up in a position where hearing that a guy named his cat after a plant (and used the Latin version) is making him blush like a seventh-grade girl, but here he is.

“That’s the dorkiest thing I've ever heard,” he says, teasingly, and Chan smiles.

“We’ve been friends for six months and _that's_ the dorkiest thing you've ever heard me say? Sure, okay.”

* * *

“What do you want to watch?” Chan asks, after dinner.

“Well, I was thinking...”

“Oh no.”

“Since you’ve never seen the greatest franchise of our time, and I'm here with you...”

“You seem to have misunderstood,” Chan says, holding out a hand to stop him “I’ve never seen Star Wars because at no point in my life have I been _interested_ in seeing Star Wars.”

“That’s because you don’t know what you’re missing! We don’t have to watch all of them tonight. Just one. If you don’t like it, that’s fine.”

“I really don’t want to, but...”

Chan grimaces, and Tony gives him the most convincing smile he can manage.

“Alright. Fine.”

* * *

“Holy fuck.”

“Right?”

“Holy. fuck.”

“Right!?”

Chan’s face, bathed in the pale glow of the closing credits in his otherwise dark living room, is caught somewhere between joy and shock.

“That was really good.”

“Hell yeah it was!”

They’re both silent for a moment, basking in the joy of the movie. It’s sort of a liminal space, and Tony thinks anything could happen. Chan gives him this sort of look, almost like he’s waiting for Tony’s next move, and like he’d be alright with it no matter what it was. His eyes flit briefly toward Tony’s lips, and Tony’s gearing up to do _something_ , to stop being such a pussy, to-

“Well, I should get going. It’s pretty late.”

His self-preservation skills (largely powered by his own crippling insecurity) kick in, and before he knows it, he’s sitting in the driver's seat of his car with his head resting against the steering wheel.

Chan hadn’t even moved when he left. Granted, that was probably partially due to the whole cast situation, but he had also just looked totally stunned. He barely even mumbled a “bye, see you Monday,” as Tony shot out the door.

“Fuck,” Tony hisses, giving the top of the steering wheel a firm smack, before starting up the car and driving home.

* * *

“Oh, fuck this. Are you kidding me?”

“Man, just slow down.”

“I’m trying! It’s all this fucking ice, it’s- goddammit.”

Almost two weeks after what he’s mentally dubbed “the movie incident” and, surprise of surprises, Tony still hates the winter. Today is especially kicking his ass, considering apparently every piece of solid ground in this half of colorado decided to form one giant sheet of ice overnight. Tony can barely drive on a normal day (as Chan has no problem constantly reminding him), so this whole situation isn’t really helping.

He finally gets to Chan's, pulling into the driveway instead of just pulling over on the side of the road like he usually does, wanting to make sure he’s as close to the door as Tony can get him.

“Have a good weekend,” Tony says to him, as he grabs his bag and opens the door.

“Yeah, you- fuck!”

The second Chan steps out of the car, he slips and falls directly over.

“Oh shit,” Tony says, getting out of the car and fumbling his way over to him. He holds onto the side of the car with one hand and reaches the other out for Chan to grab onto.

“Those crutches are a fucking death trap on all this ice,” Tony says, as he pulls Chan’s arm around his shoulder.

It’s a nightmare to make it across Chan’s driveway and up the front steps, especially in the dark, but they manage. After Chan fumbles around for his keys, Tony deposits him on the couch inside and goes back outside for his crutches, locking his car while he’s there.

“Thanks for all this,” Chan says, as Tony leans his crutches against the arm of the couch.

“It’s fine. It’s sort of my fault anyway, so...”

“Christ, I told you to stop beating yourself up about that. It was an accident.”

Tony shrugs. He knows Chan’s right, but he can’t help feel like shit, even a month later.

“I should probably get going,” he says, but he doesn’t move.

“Well, I mean...” Chan pauses “you don’t have to. I know you hate driving in this. You could just stay here.”

_Playitcoolplayitcoolplayitcoolplayitcoolplayitcoolplayitcoolplayitcoolplayitcoolplayit-_

“Yeah, that’d be great. If you’re okay with it, obviously.”

“I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t okay with it.”

“Oh. right. Duh,” Tony says, pretending to hit his own head with the heel of his hand. Chan gives him a bemused grin, and he returns it.

* * *

Several hours later, they're both on Chan's couch, having changed into more comfortable clothes (Tony keeps his gym bag in the trunk of his car, and had, miracle of miracles, actually remembered to stick clean clothes in it), watching the end credits of _Scott Pilgrim vs. the World_.

“Fuck, that’s a good movie,” Chan says, and Tony nods.

“Agreed.”

Chan yawns. “I’m gonna go have a shower, but I can get you a blanket and stuff afterwards? Or I could do it now if you’re, like, super tired.”

Tony shakes his head. “I’m good. You’re a night showerer?”

“Not usually, but it takes me way too long with this damn cast to do it in the morning.”

Tony nods, and Chan stands & disappears down the hallway. Tony pulls his phone out of the pocket of his sweatpants and starts to fiddle with it, at some point registering footsteps and the shower turning on. Barb hops up onto the couch next to him, and he nestles one hand in her fur, gently petting her as he scrolls through Twitter.

A few minutes later, Tony hasn’t moved, and he hears the shower turn off, followed by a massive _thump_.

He immediately stands, tossing his phone onto the couch and going down the hallway to knock on the bathroom door.

“Chan? What was that?”

“It was nothing. I just fell.”

“You fell? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. I don’t totally know if I can get up, but I’ll figure it out.”

Tony pauses for a moment, hearing Chan obviously try to get up and fall again, accompanied by significant cursing.

“Okay, that’s it, I'm coming in.”

“No!”

“No? What, you’re just gonna lie on the ground for the rest of your life?”

Silence. Tony knows he’s got him, but still doesn’t want to cross Chan’s boundaries, so he just waits.

“Okay, fine. But you have to cover your eyes.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to help you if I can’t see?”

“There’s a robe on the back of the door, cover your eyes when you come in and toss it to me. We’re friends, dude, but we’re not that good of friends.”

Tony sighs, but does as he’s told, both shutting his eyes and holding up his hand as he fumbles for the door handle. He gets it open, locates the robe, and tosses it in the general direction of the shower. A couple of seconds pass, and Chan speaks.

“Okay, you’re good.”

Tony moves his hand and opens his eyes to see Chan sitting on the floor with his back against the tub, expression making it clear that he’s in a lot more pain than he’s letting on.

“Don’t make that face,” Chan says.

“What face?”

“Like you’re worried about me. Don’t do that.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “You’re my friend, and I care about you. I’m allowed to be worried when you’re hurt.”

Chan frowns like he disagrees, but doesn’t argue, which Tony counts as a win.

Tony steps closer to Chan and holds out his arms to pull him up, and they end up like earlier, with Chan’s arm around Tony’s shoulder and Tony’s arm around his waist. There’s something quieter about it, though. In the driveway, they were competing with the ice, panting loudly and doing anything they could to stay standing. But now it’s just them, alone in Chan’s mostly dark bungalow. Chan’s bathrobe is soft on Tony's hand, and the vulnerability of the whole thing feels like something tender and fleeting. He’s enjoying it while he can, knowing that by Monday morning it’ll be back to them bickering and Tony stealing glances (and sometimes just openly staring) while Chan ignores him.

They make it to Chan’s room, and Tony sets him down on the bed, plopping down next to him so that they’re both sitting upright on the edge of it.

“Thanks for that,” Chan mumbles.

“It’s nothing. I’m glad you’re alright. I really do care about you.”

It feels sort of weird to have admitted it out loud twice in the span of ten minutes, but Chan makes him feel sort of weird in general, so he supposes that’s to be expected. Still, Tony's words hang over them as they sit in Chan’s dim bedroom. 

Tony feels something brush against his hand, and he looks down to see Chan's open palm, fingers reaching towards Tony's. Tony moves his hand over, fitting it into Chan’s. Neither of them will look at each other, they just sit in silence, staring at their intertwined hands.

“It’s okay to let people care about you,” Tony says, after a moment, voice only a little louder than a whisper. He turns to Chan, whose gaze is still pinned on their hands.

“It’s easier said than done,” he says, and Tony shrugs.

“Maybe. But I think you’d probably be a lot happier if you let people try.”

Chan looks up at him now, and, despite it being corny as hell, Tony is all of a sudden struck with just how _beautiful_ he really is. His hair is still damp from the shower, and his eyes are big as he searches Tony's face. His lips part so he can gently exhale, and Tony's not sure when they got so close that he can feel it against his own mouth, but here they are.

Tony swallows, and finally has the balls to do what he didn’t two weeks ago. He leans in, ever so slightly, and closes the gap.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on [Tumblr](https://readandwritesilver.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/HOMINGPIGE0N) if you want
> 
> As always, any and all feedback is appreciated :)
> 
> Much love, Clover <3


End file.
